Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Electronic Purchasing Card Solution

Emily Thornberry: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, for what reason data on his Department's (a) spending over £25,000 has not been updated since 1 September 2022 and (b) government procurement card spending over £500 has not been updated since 24 November 2022.

David Rutley: The publication of the reports referenced have been delayed as a result of the transition to a new reporting system. We remain committed to transparency and reports will be provided in due course.

Department of Health and Social Care

Alcoholic Drinks: Misuse

Dan Carden: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of specialist alcohol teams on levels of alcohol harm.

Neil O'Brien: Initial modelling for the NHS Long Term Plan was based on the case study carried out by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and estimated that Alcohol Care Teams (ACTs) would prevent 50,000 admissions over 5 years. A copy of the case study is available at the following link:https://www.bsg.org.uk/clinical-resource/alcohol-care-teams-reducing-acute-hospital-admissions-and-improving-quality-of-care/Impact of ACTs will be assessed through proACTIVE, a cost-effectiveness evaluation funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research and led by the research collaborative, which is due to report in 2024. More information about the evaluation is available at the following link:https://www.hull.ac.uk/work-with-us/research/institutes/health-trials/study/proactive

Alcoholic Drinks: Misuse

Dan Carden: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure specialist alcohol care teams are provided in hospitals which serve the 25% of areas with the highest rates of (a) alcohol harm and (b) socioeconomic deprivation.

Neil O'Brien: We are continuing to invest in the rollout of Alcohol Care Teams to the 25% of eligible hospital sites with the highest rates of deprivation and alcohol-related mortality, as committed to in the NHS Long Term Plan. At the end of March 2023, 31 out of 47 sites reported that they were optimally staffed, in line with the NHS Long Term Plan commitments.

Department for Education

Adoption

Bambos Charalambous: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to issue a formal apology to unmarried mothers who had their babies taken for adoption from the1940s to the1970s.

Claire Coutinho: The government set out its position on the question of issuing a formal apology when it responded to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report, ‘The Violation of Family Life: Adoption of Children of Unmarried Women 1949–1976’. The government’s response was published on 3 March 2023 and is available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt5803/jtselect/jtrights/1180/report.html.

Childcare

Miriam Cates: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children below school age spend (a) 30 to 39 hours and (b) 40 hours or more per week in a formal childcare setting broken down by age of child in England for which the latest data is available.

Claire Coutinho: The department does not publish the data required to answer this question. A range of related data is available in the 2022 childcare and early years survey of parents in England. This is a long-standing, nationally representative survey of 6,000 parents of children aged 0-14, with the latest data published on 27 July 2023. The survey can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents-2022.